I’ve always imagined it to be a hard job to remix one of Ed’s laid-back, almost fully acoustic tracks, but people seem to be able to do them perfectly – we’ve had this Rudimental one, Gemini’s ‘You Need Me’ remix, Subcape’s ‘Lego House’ one too, plus a load of other brilliant remixes – so can’t wait to hear the others for the ‘Drunk release!’

Have a listen, and if you like what you here, you can follow Rudimental on Twitter here, and you can also download this remix for FREE here

Right, thankyou to all the people who’ve entered – reckon there’s about 50 of you! (even if 350+ people viewed the actual competition page? – guess they didn’t like the prizes)

I’ll be doing the draw for the winner either tomorrow or Tuesday – I have a lot of A Level Christmas homework to start and then finish, but if I get time, I’ll do it tomorrow.

To show how successful this whole competition was:
Searching my name into google, now brings the comp. page up as the first result.
It’s risen my visitor numbers up from 1,000 to over 1,700 – in a week!
I’ve now gone over 100 Twitter followers.
I’ve now gone over 100 Tumblr followers.
And almost at 50 Facebook likes.

So, yeah, I’d say it was pretty successful for me. And not forgetting you lot – as one of you will end up with the Ed Sheeran prizes being delivered to your front door!

But even if you don’t win, please don’t unfollow/unlike/lose interest, as there will be more articles, reviews, interviews, and obviously, more competitions at certain ‘landmarks’!
There may also be some big news around June, but yeah, that’s a secret, a proper secret for now…

Right, I’ve posted this competition, which must mean I’ve hit the 1,000 visits mark – which in 8 weeks, I’d say is pretty great, and thank-you if you’ve been just 1 of them!

To mark this, and the fact it’s sort of still Christmas, I’ve decided to be a bit generous.

The PRIZES:

Any Ed Sheeran top of choice (can’t say which one, due to size and availability obviously – but it’ll be your choice of the available ones!)

An Ed Sheeran wristband.

A ‘You Need Me’ EP, in physical CD form – featuring the original ‘You Need Me’, ‘So’, ‘Be Like You’, ‘The City’ and ‘Sunburn’. (I know they’ve been re-released recently, but I still couldn’t find the physical copy in HMV – so they’re still fairly rare!)

So the reason it’s Ed based is because it was my feature on Ed Sheeran that bumped up my visitor numbers so quickly earlier this week – also he has the best fan pages, who’ll hopefully spread the word…

There’s 4 following options there, and basically if you follow one of them, you can enter once. Follow two of the options, enter twice. Follow 3 options, enter 3 times. And, yeah, in case you couldn’t see how that was developing, follow all 4 options, and you can enter 4 TIMES! So the more pages of mine you follow, more chance you have of winning!

Right, now how to enter:
Just answer this question…

At what venue, was Rupert Grint filmed live on stage for the ‘Lego House’ video? (HINT: It was on one of Ed’s latest tour venues…)

You will need to email you answers to ‘willackrillmusic@gmail.com‘ – and you’ll have to take a screenshot of the ways which you’re following me (for each time you enter)…

I know it might seem a bit complicated, but I’m writing this whilst a bit sleepy, but yeah. So, if you have any questions about the competition, get in contact with me somehow… there’s been lots of ways to do that posted earlier, so use one of them.

No idea how this will go down, but…

Competition will close end of New Years Day!

GOOD LUCK!

(You know what, if I really get some big numbers on this, I may chuck in a promise of more prizes. Maybe.)

It is open to anyone, even outside of the UK, you’d just need to say what country in your email!

(continued from the post below, I know it may not be continued, as this will appear before the first post, but yeah, read the one below first please…)

I remember thinking after the BBC released their Sound Of 2011 longlist, ‘Oh, yeah, you’ve really missed someone out from that!’. They really did, didn’t they. Ed Sheeran. What a year he’s had! He stated his musical intentions, maybe indirectly in the charts too – with the release of his No. 5 Collaborations EP in January – featuring the likes of Sway, Random Impulse and Wiley. It shocked everyone, seeing it climb peak at number 2 in the iTunes charts – especially considering he was still an independent artist! Well, he was, but not for much longer, as on January 12th, Ed signed with Atlantic Records and it went from strength to strength from there on in.

His first move after the record signing, was a good-willed one, as always. The ‘One Take’ EP was released for free, featuring a version of ‘You Need Me, I Don’t Need You’, a Jamie Woon cover of ‘Wayfaring Stranger’, and a version of ‘UNI’. And like anything he’s released, it went down a storm with his ever growing fan base – with over 10,000 downloads in the first 12 hours.

These were just a few highlights of the year for Ed. There’s so many I could write about. The free Camden Barfly gig being one. It attracted over 1,000 people, and if you’ve never been to the Barfly, you’ll know that, as great a venue as it is, it couldn’t hold 1,000 people. Not letting that stop him, Ed played 3 times inside the venue – until it shut. Then once more outside in the nearby car park for anyone that still hadn’t seen him.

Also, Sheeran performed ‘Wayfaring Stranger’ and debut single, ‘The A Team’ on ‘Later … With Jools Holland’ in April. With nothing but his vocals, acoustic guitar, and a loop pedal. The performance was stunning, proper goose-bump stuff!

Then the release of ‘The A Team’ just 6 weeks later. Things were moving quick, as his debut single charted at number 3 in the UK – selling 58,000 copies in the first week! It was the lead single from his debut album, ‘+’, released in early September. It showed, not just the progression throughout 2011, but the progressions since Ed started performing, writing, singing, and being around music. ‘+’ went straight in at number 1, the week after Example’s album had done just the same – and both were full of joy for the other one!

From that last bit, it seems like Ed did nothing between April and September? Very wrong. Notably, he performed a headline set at Glastonbury on the BBC Introducing stage. This was one of many summer festival performances, Bestival and Reading Festival to name a couple others.

He also released his second single in the run up to the album release. ‘You Need Me, I Don’t Need You’, and although it charted lower than ‘The A Team’ (number 4), it still sold more first week copies. But to be frank, this release wasn’t really about chart position. Obviously it was intended to promote the album. But it had much more meaning than that. ‘You Need Me…’ was the first introduction many people had to Ed – due to Jamal Edwards and SBTV. The song has changed through the years, with many new and retracted verses. So to see a final single was brilliant for Ed fans, even if they didn’t like the new beat put in, they understood it had to be done.

‘Lego House’ was the next single, and the first off the back of ‘+’. I’m proud to say that I was there on Ed’s sell-out Autum Tour, when they filmed the iconic video – at Herts University Forum, with Rupert Grint. It was also my 17th birthday that day. So, yeah, it was a pretty good day really. Anyway, ‘Lego House’ peaked at number 5. Why it didn’t chart higher was because it was available from the album, so people just couldn’t wait to buy the single version. So to peak at number 5 is absolutely massive!

There’s so much I could write about Ed Sheeran. I am one of the people that knew of him before ‘The A Team’ release, and I’ve actually met him a couple of times. Not that he’d, one; read this, or two; remember me, but even so. However, I don’t think when you discovered his music matters. As long as you support him, go to gigs, buy the singles, watch the videos, then why should it matter who saw him first?

It’s also strange to see an artist break through, and still manage to maintain their backgrounds. He’s kept the same support artists through the year close to him. Ryan Keen, Lester Clayton to name a couple.

It’s also shown by the No. 5 Collaborations EP (talked about earlier) – which came out in January 2011. Many artists would have left it behind. But not Ed. Because, as I’m writing this, I’m preparing to hear the specially recorded Live Lounge for the No. 5 Collaborations, featuring Wretch 32, P Money, Devlin and Mikill Pane for Trevor Nelson’s show on BBC Radio 1xtra. This is around 11/12 months after the release. What more could Ed do to show how committed to his music than this. (Listen and watch the whole sessions here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/1xtra/sessions/2011-12-21_edsheeran)

I think Ed is the perfect middle ground I mentioned earlier. He’s actually broken through – without having a big backing of influential music people at the start, like Jessie J. He was an independent artist at the start of 2011. He ends 2011, with a number 1 album – which sold over 102,000 copies in it’s first week, and was the most downloaded debut album in history, singles charting 3, 4 and 5, with live festival and TV performances as well. But most importantly, with a religiously following fan base, stronger than anything that could have been imagined. The future looks pretty good for him really.